Hugo Award Nominees: 2013 Edition

Hello everyone! As you may know, it is awards season – speculative fiction awards, that is. The Nebula nominees have been officially announced (and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the selection of titles), but it is also that time of year for the biggest SFF fan award nominations – the Hugo Awards.

The Hugo Awards are among the most prestigious under the SFF umbrella, and each year the winners are announced at the World Science Fiction Convention (aka WorldCon). Any SFF fan can sign up to nominate and vote for the Hugos each year. For more information on how to become a member, check out the official Hugo Awards website HERE (or our primer HERE.

As the nomination period is officially open (and rapidly coming to a close – remember that your nominations must be received by Sunday, March 10, 2013, 11:59 PM EDT), as promised, today we reveal our picks! We will try to give our reasons whenever possible especially with regards to the Novel/Novellas/Shorts categories as well as the Fanzine/Fan Writers as they are closest to our hearts.

Without further ado, we give you our picks for the 2013 ballot!

Best Novel:

The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin

WHY NOMINATE: This book made it on both of our Top 10 of 2012 lists – Jemisin’s Ancient Egypt-inspired world with its complicated politics, religious and magical systems ranks among the best we have ever had the pleasure of reading. Featuring a brilliant, flawed trio of protagonists, The Killing Moon takes us deep into the heart of Gujaareh, its dreamers, and its corruption. In short: we loved this book. Also: NINJA PRIESTS.

WHY NOMINATE: Another fantasy novel set in a non-European (read: non-Caucasian) world, Sarah Beth Durst’s Vessel is a fascinating coming-of-age story with thought-provoking questions about responsibility, faith, and belief in oneself. AND it’s not preachy, and features a strong protagonist who is prepared to die (so her goddess can assume her body) but who is never a martyr. YES.

WHY NOMINATE: Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters Saga comes to a heartwrenching close with Flame of Sevenwaters, as Maeve, the fourth daughter of Lord Sean and Lady Aisling, embarks on a terrible quest to save Sevenwaters from ruin. With its courageous protagonist, Marillier’s trademark lush prose, and integration of fantasy with history, Flame of Sevenwaters is a truly memorable and beautiful book, worthy of all the awards and accolades.

WHY NOMINATE: Frances Hardinge is an author we only just discovered last year, but quickly devoured her entire backlist and this 2012 new release. A complex dystopian novel about a subterranean society and the people who live in it with their stoic, set expressions, A Face Like Glass is a novel unlike anything you’ve read before. Trust us.

WHY NOMINATE: This is part three of a criminally underrated and underread Science Fiction series that any SF fan should be reading right now. It’s political, adventurous, diverse, fun. Bonus points: Superheroes! In SPACE!

WHY NOMINATE: Part of the excellent series of Americana/Fantasy novels by Kate Milford (starts with The Boneshaker, this is a very good novella mixes the American Civil War, american folklore and even time travel. Reviewed HERE.

Before the Fall, After the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress.

WHY NOMINATE: Nancy Kress has been around for many years for good reason: her science fiction is top notch. Before the Fall, After the Fall, During the Fall is, as the title suggests, a time-jumping account of the end of the world – an effective, harrowing novella about the apocalypse and all the comes after it. Reviewed HERE.

Best Short Story:

“Payment Due” by Frances Hardinge “The Education of a Witch” by Ellen Klages

Both stories appeared in the Under My Hat anthology (reviewed here) and were Ana’s favourite stories of the bunch.

Best Professional Artist:

Jason Chan – Seriously. Just take a look at the whimsical, beautiful art he creates. Absolutely stunning.

Ana Juan – The artist we only learned of after reading Cat Valente’s beautiful Fairyland books, we are now huge fans of Ana Juan.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form):

The AvengersThe Hunger GamesThe Dark Knight RisesBeasts of the Southern WildThe Cabin in the Woods

Tor.com – site for all things Speculative Fiction that features reviews, essays, articles, original fiction, artwork and more. It’s a cool community site with a varied range of topics and columnists. We are particularly fond of their movie and TV coverage, their Sleeps with Monsters series and anything written by Liz Bourke and Jo Walton for their blog.

Strange Horizons – A weekly (Mondays) magazine with a blog that is updated throughout the week. It features really great, in-depth reviews of Fantasy and Science Fiction, essays about these genres and original fiction as well (which often go on to win awards).

io9 – A daily publication that covers science, science fiction, and all things in between, io9 is a great source for breaking news about everything from outer space to movies. We are fans.

Best Fanzine:

SF Signal – A Science Fiction collaborative blog that offers extensive coverage of all things SciFi with news, useful roundups, discussions, interviews and more. We love their (not Jedi) Mind Meld (Sorry, couldn’t help it) articles. They were last year’s winner in this category.

Fantasy Cafe – One of our favourite blogs. Kristen writes excellent, thoughtful reviews of Speculative Fiction with the occasional interview and guest posts by authors. Last April she ran a month-long SUPERB, important event highlighting Women in SF&F.

The World SF Blog – Dedicated to Speculative Fiction coverage, posting links, news, reviews as well as publishing original stories from around the world. It presents more variety and diversity than most Blogs and Fanzines out there.

The Mary Sue – A website that highlights women in the geek world? YES PLEASE. Although they don’t a lot of book coverage, they do cover tons of great TV, Movie and general SF geekage to merit a nomination.

Foz Meadows – Foz Meadows writes over at shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows and at the Huffington Post. She has written some of the BEST blog posts and articles last year addressing sexism, racism, problematic narratives in Fandom and in YA, all in relation to SF. For a handy collection of her best articles go HERE.

Liz Bourke – One of the absolutely best Speculative Fiction reviewers out there and a thought-provoking genre commentator. Her reviews appear at Tor.com, Strange Horizon (like this epic takedown of Theft of Swords by Michael Sullivan) and her own blog Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Her Sleeps With Monsters feature at Tor.com is also squee-worthy in terms of coverage of works written by women.

Ana Mardoll Ana Mardoll, where have you been all our lives??? Ana writes over at Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings and her reviews of books and movies are awesome but her “deconstruction” posts are enviable in terms of coverage, thoughtfulness and social commentary they provide. Here is an index of all her deconstructions but we highly recommend: Female Science Fiction Authors and The Bechdel Test as a starting point.

What our nominations show: we don’t read nearly enough short fiction! We don’t know enough artists! There are also other categories we are not including only because we know ZERO about them like Podcasts and Editors!

What our nominations don’t show: how hard it was to come up with ONLY 5 novels and only 5 Fanzines and Fan Writers .

What you should know without a doubt: How it wasn’t hard AT ALL to find awesome, award-worthy books and fanzines written by women – hear that, SF Fandom?

So, what do you think of our lists? Recommendations, suggestions and discussion very welcome.

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About Thea

Thea James is half of the maniacal book review duo behind The Book Smugglers. By day, she does digital operations things over at Workman Publishing. By night, she watches an abundance of horror movies, stays up too late, and voraciously devours ALL THE SFF.

19 Responses to “Hugo Award Nominees: 2013 Edition”

I see many books on here I want to try! Unfortunately I can’t recall off the top of my head any I’d rec in addition, though you know I love me some womenz-written SFF (my brain, it’s just tired is all). Off to look up some of your recs. It’s a good day to buy books.

I can relate to not having read enough short fiction. And I guess the amound of podcasts I do listen to explains why you guys always seem to read so much faster than I do…

As far as artists are concerned, it doesn’t happen often that I google an author because I like the cover art on a book I’m reading. The last few times I did, it always turned out to be a Jason Chan cover – so I agree with you completely. Just give him a Hugo already.

Yes, we may never be over this. Thank you so much I’m excited to see where our noms match up too (Hunger Games, artists and fan writers, oh and Killing Moon obvs).

Oh but because I know you still have two days left to ammend your ballot if you want to and you have so many other fanzine possible noms, Mary Sue is classed as professional: http://semiprozine.org/semiprozine-directory/ I also had it on fanzine and had to remove it. If anyone wanted to add yet another category, pro-web prescence would be great

(also – I didn’t know you’d reviewed Under My Hat! Totally agree re those three stories – the Lanagan, the Hardinge & Klages – powerful and evocative stuff. I also loved the de Lint story & thought Delia Sherman’s was very tasty.)

An article directory may accept new articles from any contributor, but may require that a new article is unique (not published elsewhere) and not spun (see article spinning). A typical article is around 400-500 words, and tools such as a WYSIWYG editor for writing and submitting an article may be provided.^

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The Book Smugglers

noun
1 : a book review blog specializing in speculative fiction and popgeekery for all ages since 2008.
2 : a digital-first publisher of speculative fiction and nonfiction since 2014.
3 : 2014 Hugo Nominee for Best Fanzine
4 : a duo of awesomely badass book nerds